


we were just kids then (we didn't know how and didn't know when)

by Kikithehousemoose, starrydreams



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Childhood Memories, During Canon, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Its Just Really Soft, Marriage, Post-Canon, RP to Fic, this will make you feel so many emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29986515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikithehousemoose/pseuds/Kikithehousemoose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrydreams/pseuds/starrydreams
Summary: Gideon and Harrow made a promise to each other when they were kids, which Gideon had completely forgotten about. One fateful day in the Canaan house would remind her. Eventually, after what felt like a myriad, they would keep their promise.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	we were just kids then (we didn't know how and didn't know when)

**Author's Note:**

> alright, omg, so this was an rp me and my friend did at like 4am on a discord call and we both literally cried over it. i wanted to share it w yall
> 
> edited to fit the format of a fic, a LOT of which was done by kikithehousemoose ! (idk what id do w/o them if ur reading this ily)

The whole “necros and cavaliers are supposed to work together” thing hadn’t meant shit to Lady “ten-thousand years of tradition” Harrowhark Nonagesimus, who Gideon Nav had once again managed to lose track of.  _ She  _ was the one that was supposed to be good at escaping, not the Reverend Daughter, but damn if the cavalier hadn’t been looking high and low for her. The last time she’d lost Harrow like this, she’d found her unconscious in a shell of her own bones and blood. The fear of that happening again was almost enough to make her  _ hurry  _ to check every single place the necromancer could be. The last stop was their shared bedroom, decorated with  _ “ambiance.”  _ It was there, shockingly enough, that she found her. 

Not only was Harrow actually laying on the bed-- by her own volition!-- but Gideon’s eye caught the fact that she’s holding something up into the air. At the sound of the door opening, Harrow startled, rushing to put it away, but Gideon had already gotten a good enough glance of the object. It was pathetically small, round, off-white to slightly yellowed in its age, unmistakably bone. It looked similar to the other bone rings that the Lady kept on her but there was  _ something  _ about it that scratched the back of her mind. 

"What poor animal did you have to get that from?"

Harrow glared and stuffed the ring back into her robes, turning on her side so her back was facing Gideon. She huffed, “I didn’t get it from an animal.”

"Oh, so you are going after babies now?" The cavalier further into the room to set some of her stuff down and take her boots off, though as always her sword stayed as near to her as possible. "I knew the day would come, I just had to catch you in the act. No one is safe from the Reverend Daughter's cruelty, not even chubby little babies who can't even say their first word."

“I’m not killing babies, Griddle, don’t be obscene.” Harrow bristled. The thought alone made her feel nauseous. She would never harm a child, not after what her parents did. Even if they could be really, very annoying, in the Fourth’s case.

Gideon walked over to the bed, something else nagging at her mind about the object. "Why're you being so stuffy over it? It's just a bone ring, you've got millions of those."

“It’s nothing. Just something from when I was younger.”

That was what did it. There were few secrets that Harrow had been able to keep from her, especially regarding her childhood. Gideon had been there to witness all of it, had been such a big part of it whether they'd liked it or not. She furrowed her brow for a moment, thinking hard, before the memory struck her like a bolt of lightning. Childhood. Playtime. An even tinier baby Harrow, freshly come into her power, and a slightly chubbier Gideon Nav who never admitted she was impressed by it. 

"Nonagesimus. You----- you still  _ have  _ that?!”

Harrow turned bright red under her paint, wishing very very badly that she didn’t need Gideon so she could put her in the ground, summon skeletons to pull her deep into the dirt, never to be seen again. This was truly, absolutely mortifying. Absolutely horrible. Maybe she could stage some sort of accident and attempt to form alliances with another house for use of their cavalier.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Harrow insisted, taking a pillow and using it as a shield.

"Nooo, no no no. You're not getting out of this one that easily." She moved further onto the bed until she was beside Harrow, making it dip so much that the much lighter girl was at serious risk of rolling right into her. Harrow shifted away from Gideon, burying her face in the pillow. "You were 4. I was 5. Making tiny bone rings was like the first thing you could do. I said that your parents had some and you said _ so? _ and I said that meant they were married and you gave me one and asked if we were married and I said _ yes _ . And you  _ kept yours _ ? This whole time?"

Harrow willed herself to sink into the mattress and be devoured by it, but it sadly couldn’t hear her pleas. She wanted to scream; she could remember it all so vividly as Gideon recounted it. They were so, so small, before they learned to hate each other. It was one of the only few memories she had of those times and it filled her with indescribable emotions. Emotions she had buried further than the Tomb.

“Yes I kept it,” she muttered. “This whole time. I don’t know why.”

Gideon could laugh. She could scream. No, definitely laugh. She was laughing. It was the wheezing laughter of disbelief, the full-body shock that makes her double over as if it were killing her. It might as well have been. She'd worked for so much of her life to embarrass Harrow in many ways, but this was taking the cake. 

"Oh my god! I'm going to hold that over you forever! You've been working so hard to make my life so fucking miserable this whole time while carrying around our stupid little marriage trinket in your pocket? Are you  _ shitting _ me?? I threw mine down the shaft years ago. I figured if nobody else wanted me then I might as well give it to the Tomb."

Something in Harrow broke when she heard that. She knew all her bones and organs were fine, so it couldn’t be that, but something plunged her into a deep sort of upsetness she hadn’t felt in a few years. She could have cried, if that was something she truly allowed herself to do. Then, she wanted to kill  _ herself _ for feeling that sort of emotion. It was ridiculous. This was ridiculous.

She immediately sat up and moved as far away from Gideon as she could while still being on the bed. She felt like throwing the ring at her. She felt like changing it into something else. She felt like making it dust.

“Why am I not surprised you threw away the one sentimental thing you had in your miserable little life,” Harrow spat, finding herself angrier than expected. “The Tomb is too good for your  _ garbage _ .”

Gideon scowled at the tone, though she wasn't sure what else she'd expected. Harrow's vibes were never good but right now they were rank, the way they usually got when Gideon had crossed a hard boundary of hers. Then again anything related to the Tomb was a hard boundary for Harrow, one that Gideon tried to cross as much as possible. 

"Sentimental?  _ Sentimental _ ? What, you think I look back on our childhood and feel happy? You think I would get warm fuzzies from remembering our kiddie marriage? I don't have any good memories with you, Harrow. Not a goddamn one. I'm never going to be happy about the times before we knew what hate was because you hated me, even then, you just didn't know it yet. You hated me and Crux hated me and your parents hated me and the Tomb hated me and that stupid tiny ass ring probably would've hated me too if I'd held onto it long enough. Is it not good enough for you to own me? I'm supposed to be happy about the idea of me actually committing myself to you, too?"

Harrow couldn’t breathe, suddenly lightheaded. She wondered if she would pass out but she ignored that train of thought and pushed herself off the bed and stalked off to the other side of the room. She looked like she was going to leave, but she turned last second and rounded on Gideon.

“I didn’t hate you,” she said, but the malice in her tone was not helping her point. “Not then. Everyone else might have because you are the greatest nuisance the Ninth has ever had within their walls, but I was too young to hate you. And-  _ fuck _ , Griddle! Fuck  _ me  _ for wanting to remember the last time I was  _ happy _ !” She rummaged through her robes to pull the ring out, tossing it full force at her. “You’re my cavalier. You better get used to being committed to me.” 

She scowled and finally stormed off.

\------

Gideon hurt in the best way.   


She didn't like to think about Camilla kicking her ass too hard but she at least had some experience getting humiliated by someone who was smaller than her, and at least out of all the people to get humiliated by she had the honor of it being  _ Camilla Hect _ . Nevertheless, waking up sore felt good. It meant that she was building back some of the muscle mass she'd lost from her year-long internship as a possessed meat corpse. 

She had perfected the art of sliding out of bed without immediately waking Harrow, who had taken to clinging onto her during the night whether she would admit to it or not. She knew the Lyctor would wake sooner rather than later now that she was up and about, but she still took the time to get some stretches and warm-ups in before quickly wrapping up the rest of her morning routine. Getting dressed took the longest; new underwear, pants, shirt, gloves, necklace. 

She took a second longer than usual to glance at the necklace, having only recently created it. Well, she didn't create all of it-- the incredibly small, child-sized bone ring had remained on her person, and she had recently gotten the bright idea to tie a string through it and wear it around her neck instead of doing something as embarrassing as asking Harrow to make it bigger; the request had yet to occur to her.

On the bed, Harrow had awoken and briefly debated with herself if she wanted to pretend to be asleep or simply sit up and demand attention from her cavalier. (She had gotten… better about things, lately, when it came to expressing her affection or simply allowing herself to be loved.) Finding compromise with herself, she turned in bed and peeked an eye open to see Gideon putting the necklace on. At first, she couldn't recognize it. She wondered where Gideon had even gotten a new necklace until she saw the small bone ring on the end of it. It made her freeze and squeeze her eyes shut again.

She didn't know what to  _ do _ , what to  _ say _ . She certainly should have said something about it. Gideon kept it. That had to mean something, right? Fuck. Instead of saying anything, in a true Harrow fashion, she chucked a pillow at the other.

Gideon barely registered the pillow, but her body reacted to it first. She had her sword right beside her on the dresser and reacted on instinct, drawing it up enough to block the incoming attack and swing the pillow back in the other direction like it was a baseball bat. It wasn't until the pillow landed on the bed that she realized it had come from Harrow and-- feeling like a fool-- leaned her sword back against the dresser. 

"Oh, it's gonna be that kind of morning?"

“Fuck you,” Harrow groaned and immediately snatched the pillow back. She wanted to stuff it with bones and throw it back at her but she just held it angrily. It probably didn’t look near as intimidating as she thought. She threw herself back on the bed with an angry huff. “You’re absolutely infuriating. Do you know that? You are so-! So frustrating!”

"I literally just woke up," she argues. They had been through hell and back together-- almost literally-- but sometimes it was like their dynamic had never changed. There was a blatant affection that was there before, a tone of  _ "I care so much about you, idiot" _ that people less familiar with them might not pick up on, but sometimes Gideon was certain that they were only a few seconds away from exchanging blows. Just like old times. 

"You gonna tell me what I did wrong or am I gonna have to guess? Cause if I need to guess then I'm going to start at leaving the toilet seat up and go from there."

“I think you should start with the hypocrisy!” Harrow shot up, the pillow now in her lap. She felt herself getting increasingly angry by the second; it had been so long since she had been this mad at Gideon. Guilt clawed at her as she shouted, but she was on a roll and couldn’t stop.

_ “I’m never going to let you live this down, Harrow,” _ she mocked, slowly standing up. She started walking up to her.  _ “You kept yours? I hate you too much to have keep mine.” _

She reached up and grabbed the necklace, yanking Gideon forward. “What the fuck, Griddle.”

Oh. Oh, fuck. She'd fucked up. She hadn't expected Harrow to be so mad about this. She'd thought she was going to get all weepy and poetic and shit. Oh no. 

Of course, instead of immediately being sorry or explaining herself or diffusing the situation at all, Gideon's own anger flared up. It was instinct-- she was acting on a lot of that so far. 

"Don't  _ what the fuck _ me. You're the one who got on me for not being sentimental." She put her hand on Harrow's wrist, staring down into her own golden eyes. _ fucked up fucked up fucked up _

"I didn't say I hated you, okay?” she continued, “I said  _ you  _ hated  _ me. _ I said I didn't have any happy memories with you because I thought I didn't. All the memories that were _ supposed _ to be happy were fucked up by the years of everything else. And I didn't think we were going to make any more. At first, I just kept it cause I knew you were right: I had to be committed to that role long enough to get you to Lyctorhood and get me my freedom. Then all that other shit happened and gave me other reasons and it managed to stay in my pocket long enough to survive death and possession and my weird zombie phase and now it’s. It's just _ different _ now, okay?! _ I'm _ different!  _ We're  _ different!"

Harrow could scream. She could hit Gideon and storm off to some other part of the complex. Being told she was right could only soothe her so much; Gideon kept it. She kept the stupid fucking ring and she had been wearing it through everything. She wore it when she swore her allegiance. She wore it when she died. It was still here after her death. The Ortus that lived in her head would say something stupidly poetic right now and it made her urge to have an outburst a million times worse.

She breathed heavily, frozen in their locked position. As much as Harrow wanted to hit her, she wanted to kiss her too. She hated this. She hated having feelings.

"Different," she echoed, grip loosening ever so slightly. She was slowly calming down-- anger took so much out of her lately. "What, so it- means something again to you?"

" _ Yes _ !" She could feel Harrow's grip starting to loosen but didn't let go, instead marginally relaxing her own grip too. She got the instinct to hold Harrow's hand-- but nope, no, that would make the situation worse probably. She should just keep it there if she didn't know what else to do. 

"It's always meant something. That's the thing, it-- it never meant  _ nothing  _ to me. It just used to mean the wrong things. When I threw it to the Tomb, it was ‘cause that ring, and all those happy memories, they were a broken promise. It was supposed to be us being happy, being friends, being kids, and then we  _ weren't _ anymore. Then Crux started trying to kill me and I thought it was you, and then _ you were _ trying to kill me, and then I was trying to escape, and one day I just knew that I didn't mean shit to you anymore, that our childhood was gone and the bone ring was only going to be a reminder of every way I had ever been wronged, of how not even my cute little playground wife ever actually wanted me.

“That's what it meant to me then. Now, it's more of a new promise, of a sort. Not just the one we made to each other. One I'm making to the 8-year-old me who threw her ring away. One you're making to the me who thought she couldn't be loved. Those memories don't hurt me anymore. When I committed myself to you, I committed myself to me too. To our future and our happiness. I wanted to carry around the part of me that still believed in living a good life with you because that's possible now. That's what we're working towards. I'm not doing this to mock you, Harrow, I'm doing this because I love you. Because I know that we can  _ be _ loved."

Harrow stared at Gideon the entire time she spoke, trying to grapple with all of the words she was saying. She knew, acutely, she was holding her breath, resisting the urge to close her eyes or look away at the explanation of young Gideon's actions. It... hurt. She knew how much everything hurt Gideon and it made her hurt three times as bad in guilt and shame. She would never stop trying to make it up to her, never stop apologizing for it. 

Gideon dropped her hand, so Harrow dropped hers too, feeling like they were disarming themselves. She wavered on her feet slightly-- a new promise. A new hope. That was what the ring had always been to her, future hope that they could trust each other again, that they could get to that point again. She supposed they had, too, or they were working towards it. She wished she could tell her younger self that she would get that, that she would be happy again. That she could ever get to a point where she could openly care so, so deeply for Gideon.

She sucked in a sharp breath when the part about Gideon loving her hit her brain, going a little light-headed. She forced herself to push some of the air out of her lungs before she was surging forward, cupping Gideon's cheeks and kissing her. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't.

Gideon was rarely the type to have long dramatic monologues--- okay, they both had their moments. But even this felt a little more natural after everything they'd been through. She hadn't known how Harrow was going to respond and hadn't thought about it, because it was once again Gideon Talk Time. It was only once Harrow was kissing her that she got out of her own head. 

Gideon's hands went up to hold her wrists again, more to just hold some part of her than to keep her back. 

"I'm sorry," Harrow whispered, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I want to work towards that with you. I want to be happy with you."

Harrow was truly using all in her power not to cry, quite literally, shifting her bodily functions so she wouldn’t. It was too early to make a fool of herself by sobbing in Gideon's arms; her Lyctor powers were the only thing keeping her from it. All she wanted to do was bury her face in Gideon's shoulder and apologize over and over again for her outburst, for her anger. She didn't want to be angry with her anymore.

Any anger Gideon had left was well gone by now, and as soon as she heard the slight tremble in Harrow's voice she could only think  _ no _ , because if Harrow started crying then she was definitely going to cry and it's too early in the morning for that. 

She kissed her back, gently, bringing one hand up to rest on the back of her neck. 

"I know," her own voice was little more than a whisper now "I know. I.. It's stupid. I know we have our eyes, and our reputation. But I wanted to start wearing it again to show people that we were working on it. I wanted to give you your own but I can't... make.. them. Wait--" Her grip relaxed a little as her single brain cell bounces around "Do you want this one back?"

"No, no, I..." Harrow trailed off and shifted her hands so she could slip the necklace off Gideon. She took the ring off its makeshift chain and molded the bone so it would fit her cavalier now. Hesitantly, Harrow took just the smallest bit of her own bone, just from her ring finger, and worked it into the ring. 

Gideon watched as Harrow did what she should've just asked her to do in the first place. It was near effortless for her, but the action had so much weight behind it that it felt like one of the most significant things she'd ever done. Gideon winced slightly as Harrow took a bit of her own bone-- it would always be cringeworthy to watch her hurt herself-- but even she was able to appreciate the symbolism of what she was doing. 

Her mouth suddenly felt all too dry as she presented the ring back to Gideon. "This means... more. Than our eyes. It's like you said, it's... a promise. To past us. I can make myself another one."

More than their eyes. More than their Lyctorhood. On behalf of the worst year of their lives, she wanted to disagree. She couldn't find it in her. It was more. It was different. They were different. 

Softened into quietness, Gideon glanced down at the ring, raising a hand up so that it could slip onto her finger. Right where it should be. Her brain fell silent in its awe. She looked back up at Harrow in stunned reverence of her. Harrow placed the ring on Gideon's finger, lingering there for only a moment. 

The necromancer took one of her bone earrings and molded it into her own ring, smaller than the one Gideon now wore. She held it in her hand a little awkwardly, eyes flickering up to meet her cavalier's gaze again. This felt incredibly intimate, more so than anything they had ever done.

"May I...?" She asked softly, taking Gideon's hand in her own. "It won't hurt. It- it will just be like removing a deep splinter."

"Oh," she had nearly failed to realize that the process would go both ways. By this point, it would be the worst thing she'd ever done to say no. She trusted Harrow. And even if it did hurt, it couldn’t be  _ too  _ bad. No amount of pain could ever make her deny her necromancer. 

"Yeah," her voice is still so soft that it almost doesn't sound like hers. She doesn't register anything except Harrow anymore; Harrow, and the weight of the ring on her finger.

Harrow took a deep breath and started to work the bit of bone from Gideon's ring finger, just like she had done herself. It was harder, doing it on someone else, but there was little she couldn't do when it came to bones and her Perfect Lyctorhood. The only thing she wished was that she was better with the body, like Mercy, and could take away any sort of pain Gideon could have felt.

The process didn’t hurt Gideon any more than her sore muscles but  _ wow  _ did it feel weird. Her mind can't help but briefly wander to those disturbing scenes in Canaan House, when she'd seen both of the twin sisters not hesitate at all before taking a bite out of their cavalier, when she'd seen him not even flinch. It had felt gross and barbaric for the longest time, but she got it now. She understood. Harrow could take from her as much as she ever needed to. Gideon had already given herself to her entirely, body and spirit and mind, and she would do it again and again and again without a second thought. Though Harrow wasn't eating her now, she was pulling part of Gideon's body away for herself to wear, and the only thing Gideon could think was  _ Take it. It's yours. All of me is yours, _ without a trace of malice.

When the bone was out, Harrow added it to the ring and sort of held it out. "Do you want to...?"

Gideon opened her mouth to say  _ yeah _ , but nothing came out. She reached out instead, cupping her fingers around the ring, using her other hand to hold up the bottom of Harrow's so gently, as gently as one might hold a baby bird. She slid the ring onto Harrow's finger, lacing their fingers together once she did so. Their eyes travel up to meet, their gazes reflected back at each other, full of tenderness so deep it was almost painful to see. 

Harrow couldn't hold it back anymore. A soft sob shook her, rattling through her bones, tears springing to her eyes. She blinked and they fell down her cheeks and she immediately lifted her free hand to her face to wipe them away. There was a soft smile on her face, something so rare for her but never felt so natural until this moment. Everything within her was undoing itself and rewriting itself, reworking years and years of hopelessness and loneliness.

Gideon didn't think she could fall any more in love with her. The oath she'd taken was supposed to be  _ it _ , then dying was supposed to be _ it _ , then keeping Harrow's body warm for her while she was gone was supposed to be  _ it _ . Yet she found herself slipping again, falling not just into love, but into Harrow. This time, she didn't fight it. She didn't want to. 

"I--" Harrow gasped softly, squeezing Gideon's hand. Her head was spinning. She could feel the grooves of Gideon's bone in her ring like a beacon of comfort. Gideon didn’t need to say anything; she could all but hear her thoughts. "I love you too." 

Gideon brought a hand up to Harrow's face and curled in, holding her. She was going to start crying too if she kept looking at her. If she hadn't started already. 

"Are we.." she laughed a little, feeling their hearts beating in tandem, feeling their bones pressed against each other "Did we just get married?"

Harrow laughed, a little wet laugh from her sob. Then she laughed again. And again. And suddenly she was just  _ laughing _ . Laughing in a way she had never before. She was giggling, cheeks already cramping from the effort, then turning a brilliant shade of pink. It was clear she hadn’t thought that far ahead at all, so unlike her it was amusing. 

It was only then that Gideon realized she had never seen Harrow laugh before. She knew it in the back of her mind, back when her favorite hobby was listing all the bad things about her, but it only really struck her now that she was doing it. Gideon felt herself melt. She wanted to stay in this moment forever. She wanted to make Harrow laugh like that again. She wanted to.... what else  _ could _ she do? Harrow was already hers. 

"I... believe we did," Harrow said softly, once her laughter had subsided, a few more tears slipping down her cheeks. "If- if you would like."

"I do," she blurted out as soon as Harrow asks, her own face the softest and most sincere it’s ever been in front of her. She kissed her again, pressing their hands together, tasting the salty hint of tears that had collected on both of their lips. She spoke again, even quieter "I do."

Harrow was on the verge of simply breaking down in sobs. She hardly let Gideon repeat herself before she was pulling her back into another kiss. If she spoke now, she knew her voice would betray her. She just needed Gideon there and close and with her. Her free hand shook slightly as she lifted it to cup Gideon's cheek again, as if checking to make sure she was really, truly there.

"I do too," she whispered, when she was sure she could. "I want to spend... every myriad with you. Working to get better with you."

Gideon looked back into Harrow's eyes, keeping both of their hands locked together, following her every movement. 

"Every myriad," she promised. "A little better, every day. Every day and every year and every myriad until Dominicus burns out again, and every myriad after that. One flesh, one end."

"One flesh, one end," Harrow repeated, a soft laugh coming out in the same breath. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Gideon's own, trying to calm herself down a little. The tears stopped coming as much, her breathing becoming a little more even. "And," she started, cutting herself off to swallow, "this.. this is real, right? I haven't completely gone insane?"

Gideon’s heart would've broken a little more at that if it hadn't still been jelly. She always hurt to remember how much Harrow struggled with staying in reality, how she had been all but on her own with it for so long. How it was in the back of her mind even now, in the most intimate moments they'd ever shared. 

"You could still be insane," she teased with a little smile, wiping a thumb across Harrow's cheek. She turned her hand over and kisses Harrow's knuckles, then her fingers, right below where the new ring rested. "But this is real. It's never been more real."

"Okay. Good," Harrow smiled in return. It was more than relieving to hear Gideon say it out loud, even if she knew she wouldn't be able to touch her if all of this was just a hallucination. The verbal confirmation took whatever tiny bit of tension that was left in her out, and now all she wanted to do was lean her full weight against her cavalier.

She sniffled, lacing their fingers together again. "I'm sorry for throwing the pillow at you."

It was Gideon's turn to start laughing again. God, it was only the morning. They'd only just woken up. They still had a full day ahead of them. Why could they never just have a normal day with a normal schedule? 

"You've got good aim. Maybe if you'd come to training with me it would've actually hit~."

"Let me think about that," Harrow hummed softly, pretending to put as much thought into it as she did anything, which was a lot. “Absolutely not.”

She didn't want to move. She didn't want to untangle herself from Gideon's grasp. She would be distraught if she couldn't spend the entire day glued by her side. "I will watch you train all you want, Griddle, but I will never lift a single weight."

"Challenge accepted, babe. We've got all myriad." She didn't care about Camilla. She didn't care about Coronabeth. Not right then. Not all the things they were supposed to do. She could stay in bed with Harrow all day and never know a greater happiness.

"It's not a challenge," Harrow said with a roll of her eyes. _ It was a promise _ , she wanted to say, but the use of the word in that context felt too light compared to the one they had just made, mere minutes ago.

She gave an experimental step back toward the bed, seeing if Gideon would follow her. Of course Gideon followed her. Not just because she agrees with the idea, or is glad to see Harrow wanting to rest instead of work for once, but because she was ready to follow Harrow anywhere right now, regardless of prior engagements. After all, when had responsibility ever been in Gideon Nav's vocabulary? 

Harrow pulled them back to the bed, happy to be lying down again. She freed one hand so that she could pull the blankets over them-- herself, mostly. She couldn't help the little indignant laugh that escaped her. Gideon gladly lies back down with her, not missing how she hogs most of the blankets. She always hogs the blankets-- she's just so small that she's constantly cold, like a little dog. That's what Gideon tells herself, anyway. 

"I cannot, simply. Out of protest.” Harrow finished.

"What, you're going to use your fancy Lyctor powers to make your arms too weak?"

"I don't think I would need my Lyctor powers to do that. You were in my body," she mused. "But I might if you try to force me."

"I told you to lift weights" she argued without passion, looking interested but partially prepared for a trap. "It feels like you've already got some idea as to what I could do to force you, Nonagesimus."

“I don’t like your rather barbaric implications,” Harrow teased. She felt so.. light, it was strange. There was this fluttering in her that made her feel incredibly giddy. “I don’t ask you to learn theorems, Gideon, you shouldn’t ask me to lift weights.”

"I could learn theorems if I wanted to" she insisted, never having been good at learning much of anything from books. She could read them, sure, and even process the information sometimes, but actually reading something and learning? Or looking at a chart for the first time and knowing what it meant? Fuck no. She had never been good at that. But she totally could if she felt like it. "Also, I don't need to learn theorems to be healthy. Getting a little more muscle mass on you has absolutely no downsides."

Harrow wrinkled her nose just thinking about it. She could hardly picture herself with any sort of muscle mass. That was what she had Gideon for, anyway— besides the obvious other reasons. She curled up to Gideon more, wrapping her arms around her. “I am certain there are downsides you aren’t thinking of.”

There were downsides she was thinking of but she wasn't going to voice them. Gideon wrapped her arms around Harrow in return, pulling her into a very warm and cozy cuddle, and sighing into blissful relaxation. "Nope. No pain, only gain. Zero reasons for you not to do it."

“You’re doing a horrible job at convincing me,” Harrow snorted. She let her eyes slip shut, feeling as if she was owed another hour or two of sleep. “There is no need for me to get physically strong because I have you. I’m not going to be without you.”

Fuck, c'mon. That wasn't fair. She was still tender from that whole scene they just had, now she was still going to have to figure out how to handle her wife being affectionat---- 

Holy shit Harrow was her wife. 

" _ Yeah _ ," she choked out, her voice fuller with emotion than it had ever been.

Harrow smiled smugly, pleased with having won that argument. Maybe it was a little bit of a low blow, but she knew it would work. She knew that Gideon’s emotions could be her weakness. Except, now, she would only ever use that to win soft little bickering sessions like this.

She took a deep breath, just taking in Gideon’s scent. “I love you, Griddle.”

She would have died happy again if it wouldn't upset Harrow so badly. Their promise had been to work together to make their relationship better than this.... did it _ get _ better than this? Was she going to be able to survive it getting better than this? Odds were not looking good. 

Her arms wrapped around Harrow a little tighter. "I love you too, Sparrow."

Time would pass. They would have to untangle themselves from each other eventually. But for those few fleeting moments they simply lied together, lapsing into blissful silence. Between them, one flesh. Before them, one end. Everything was as it should be. 

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed this !! :D it would mean a lot


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